With 318 days to go, Ireland's battle for the single place in the 49er Olympic men's skiff class for Paris 2024 resumes this weekend at Lanzarote International Regatta.
Both of Ireland's 49er skiff campaigns are on the Canary Island from 9 to 17 February in the first Olympic test of 2023 in a 29-boat fleet.
Robert Dickson (HYC) and Sean Waddilove (SSC) are keen to go to a second Games, but new Royal Cork campaigners Seafra Guilfoyle and Johnny Durcan are just as eager to represent Ireland at Paris 2024, so the fight is on for a place on the Marseille start line.
Most Irish sailors, however, will recall the stand-out performance of Howth/Skerries pair Robert Dickson (HYC) and Sean Waddilove (SSC) at this venue in 2020. With Ireland's Olympic place secured in Tokyo in fleet racing and putting rivals Ryan Seaton and Seafra Guilfoyle to the sword, the then greenhorns showed a clean pair of heels to the 10-boat fleet. They put themselves back onto the podium with a medal race win to give them bronze medals in the Canarian sunshine, as Afloat reported here.
This year, Bart Lambriex and Floris van de Werken (NED) has won the past two 49er World Championships, making the Dutch duo the favourites this week in Lanzarote. However, last year's World Championship silver medallists Diego Botín and Florian Trittel (ESP) have done a lot of training on these waters, which could prove an advantage to the Spaniards. Plenty of others to pick out from a strong line-up in the men's skiff, including the 2018 49er World Champions, the speedy siblings from Croatia, Sime and Mihovil Fantela (CRO).
While the form book suggests the Dutch are the team to beat, van der Werken doesn't see it that way. "It's a few months since we won the Worlds in Canada, and everyone has been training hard," he said. "You're only as good as you are in the moment, and we still have plenty of things we need to improve on."
The double World Champions love to start on port tack when the opportunity offers itself, but this week they want to try something different. "We want to work on our mid-line starting and see how we can do from there. It's an important skill for us to add to our toolbox to be more complete sailors in every kind of sailing condition.
"People think of Lanzarote as only strong winds, but actually you can everything - flat water, swell, light winds, strong wind. A lot of different conditions and beautiful wildlife as well. You see turtles, flying fish, there are so many beautiful things around you all the time."
No Irish 49erfx
The 49erfx fleet is also in action in Lanzarote this weekend. Despite efforts (and expense) after Annalise Muphy's aborted campaign for Tokyo, and Saskia Tidey quitting to sail for GB after Rio, there is, unfortunately, no forthcoming Irish women's campaign for Paris. There are, however, some North-South green shoots for Los Angeles 2028 as Afloat reported previously here